The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: des Grassins, and be the first to pay their compliments to
Mademoiselle Eugenie. All three brought enormous bouquets, gathered in
their little green-houses. The stalks of the flowers which the
president intended to present were ingeniously wound round with a
white satin ribbon adorned with gold fringe. In the morning Monsieur
Grandet, following his usual custom on the days that commemorated the
birth and the fete of Eugenie, went to her bedside and solemnly
presented her with his paternal gift,--which for the last thirteen
years had consisted regularly of a curious gold-piece. Madame Grandet
gave her daughter a winter dress or a summer dress, as the case might
be. These two dresses and the gold-pieces, of which she received two
 Eugenie Grandet |